Niira Radia tapes: Justice G S Singhvi refuses to continue hearing Ratan Tata's privacy plea

NEW DELHI: Justice G S Singhvi, who has been hearing Ratan Tata's plea in the Supreme Court for privacy in connection with the controversial Niira Radia tapes, on Wednesday refused to deal with the case any further after senior advocate Rajeev Dhavan accused him of behaving arbitrarily and not hearing the media organisations that had published the tapes, despite the case being repeatedly listed.

"This is highly arbitrary. I am really sorry for the institution. This is unfortunate," Dhavan had said after Justice Singhvi refused to hear his arguments. This is "denying the media the right to answer... This is highly upsetting," said Dhavan, who is representing Open magazine in the case. Outlook magazine is being represented by senior advocate Anil B Divan.

The magazines are defending the media's right to publish "unverified" content as against Tata's counsel Harish Salve who is contending that they cannot. Dhavan was to open arguments for Open magazine on Wednesday.

Dhavan said he would argue for dismissing Tata's plea to screen all private content of tapes to ensure that his privacy was protected in the future with "costs". Salve on his part dismissed the tapes as an "open and shut case of corporate warfare".

The NGO Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL) has urged the court to make all tapes public except for those conversations that were purely private in nature.

Justice Singhvi stuck to his stand that he would hear all issues together, after he along with Justice Y Gopala Gowda issued notices to CBI, the Centre and Tata on CPIL's latest plea. CPIL had demanded a CBI probe into RIL and the Tata group on the basis of a Serious Fraud Investigation Office report.